Paul's orchestral work also includes

appearing as guest principal viola with the Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.

Paul Silverthorne is one of the UK's foremost viola players. He holds the principal positions in both the London Symphony Orchestra and the London Sinfonietta and appears regularly as a soloist with these and other major orchestras around the world.

Throughout his career he has worked closely with some of the leading composers of our time, this relationship inspiring many of them to write for him, enlarging a repertoire that already encompasses all the major viola works as well as his own transcriptions and lesser known pieces from all periods.

He has recorded a wide range of repertoire for EMI, Black Box, Naxos, Chandos, Koch International Classics, Meridian, and others to much critical acclaim.

He is a professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and plays a viola made by the Brothers Amati in 1620 which is loaned to him from their collection.

Paul joined Morgensterns in February 2006

Paul's web profile was last updated 10th Feb 2018

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Paul Silverthorne (Viola) Profile

Paul Silverthorne is one of the UK's foremost viola players. He holds the principal positions in both the London Symphony Orchestra and the London Sinfonietta and appears regularly as a soloist with these and other major orchestras around the world.

Throughout his career he has worked closely with some of the leading composers of our time, this relationship inspiring many of them to write for him, enlarging a repertoire that already encompasses all the major viola works as well as his own transcriptions and lesser known pieces from all periods.

He has recorded a wide range of repertoire for EMI, Black Box, Naxos, Chandos, Koch International Classics, Meridian, and others to much critical acclaim.

He is a professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and plays a viola made by the Brothers Amati in 1620 which is loaned to him from their collection.

Reviews

"The Viola Concerto is indeed a wonderful piece, one of all too few in which the composer was not audibly ingratiating himself with some or other part of the Establishment. There is a warm humanity here, conjured up right from the start in flexible orchestral playing and the melting tone of Paul Silverthorne's viola. Even in those musings, which seem tangential to the argument, Silverthorne's intensity of line and nuanced playing were compelling.

The middle movement featured virtuoso dialogue between soloist and orchestra, with Gardiner alert to contrapuntal detail. Throughout he ensured that the intricacies of a score in which the soloist melds with small sections of the orchestra were subtly realised. The lyrical finale set the seal on this heartfelt account. "

The Guardian - Tom Service

"Between these two display pieces was Paul Silverthorne's performance of one of Walton's most intimate orchestral pieces, the Viola Concerto. He relished the melancholy of the soaring solo lines in the first and last movements, and created an acerbic energy in the Scherzo. For all its immediacy, there was nothing sentimental in his playing, and the final moments of the piece, as Silverthorne played a denuded version of the opening movement's theme over a bleak orchestral landscape, were achingly nostalgic."

Financial Times - Richard Fairman

"The elegiac Viola Concerto was much to the fore in the Walton centenary last year, perhaps because it is so different from his other major orchestral works. This performance aspired to a certain romantic grandiloquence, with Paul Silverthorne, the LSO's principal viola, making an impressively dark-hued soloist.
"

Sunday Telegraph - Michael Kennedy

"Some people rank the Viola Concerto (1929) as the finest of Walton's works; its blend of sweet-and-sour lyricism and jazzy episodes remains the most characteristic example of the introvert side of his creative personality. It was played with brooding intensity and dark-chocolate tone by Paul Silverthorne, sensitively accompanied by his colleagues of the LSO."

Britten - Peter Grimes
London and New York January 2004
London Symphony Chorus and Orchestra - Sir Colin Davis

"Violas were under the spotlight once again for the London Symphony Orchestra's 8 May concert, also at the Barbican, as part of the 'By George! Musical encounters with George Benjamin' series. Benjamin declares that, 'The underestimated viola has become one of my favourite instruments in recent years,' and this concert included his brilliantly conceived duo for the instrument, Viola, viola. First up, though, was Bach's Brandenburg Concerto no.6, unusual in its low-lying scoring of two violas and a cello alongside two violas da gamba and a violone. Here Paul Silverthorne and Edward Vanderspar took the solo parts in a dazzling performance. The ensemble was all one could ask for, performing with an impeccable lightness of touch and warmly rounded sound.

Viola, viola was commissioned by Takemitsu for the 1997 opening of the 1,600-seat Tokyo Opera City. Benjamin's challenge was to fill the concert hall with the sound of just two violas, and in this he surpasses all expectations: at times it is impossible to believe that this incredibly big sound is coming from only two instruments. Each shadows the other, from percussive spread chords to spectral, creeping harmonics. Silverthorne and Vanderspar played as one: complex, shifting rhythms were all perfectly timed to bring this dynamic and dazzling piece to life. "

"The confidence of the players and that of the excellent soloist, Paul Silverthorne, the principal violist of the orchestra, was so assured that no one seemed rattled when the performance stopped cold about five minutes into the first movement so that Mr. Silverthorne could replace a broken string. Sir Colin simply started over, and the taut, quiet tension of the playing was as before.

In the bucolic serenade Mr. Silverthorne exulted in the expansive melody without a trace of expressive indulgence. "

New Jersey Star-Ledger - Willa J. Conrad

"Silverthorne's tone was dark and sweet, thick in texture but gliding with a smooth legato that suited this work well. "

"The Rhapsody Concerto was the work that first alerted me to Martinu's genius, so it has a special place in my affections. As played by Paul Silverthorne at the Barbican on 21 March, it had a particular poignancy, made up partly of Silverthorne's elegiac tone and partly of his finely judged legato line - few works for viola and orchestra sing as freely as this one and the soloist clearly comprehended every bar of his part, so that each of the three sections became a seamless whole. Not for the first time I wished the beautiful concerto were a few minutes longer. "

The Times (London) March 28 2001

"Then the LSO's fine principal viola, Paul Silverthorne, stepped forward for an equally overdue hearing of Martinu's Rhapsody-Concerto for viola and orchestra. One grave song after another was sung with revelatory eloquence."

NY Times May 2 2001

"The Sunday program also included Martinu's Rhapsody-Concerto for Viola and Orchestra, a passionate work that narrowly avoids lugubriousness. Paul Silverthorne gave an eloquent, soulful account of its solo viola line."

www.concertonet.com May 2 2001

"LSO at Avery Fisher

Bohuslav Martinu was a prodigiously prolific composer who spent most of his mature years in America. His gorgeous piece for viola and orchestra was written not long after that of Bartok (also in America) and it received a superb performance in the hands of the principal of the group. Not only was the soloist inspired, the essentially string orchestra accompaniment was able to produce an amazing variety of tonkunst,... Kudos to all for giving us an opportunity to hear such a luxuriant work so lovingly performed"

"Walton's artistic journey from progressive enfant terrible, to mature post-Romantic and reflective poet can easily be traced through the three superb string concertos that André Previn, the LSO and the LSO's string principals presented in a single concert. Paul Silverthorne set the standard with a broad, pliable and limpidly phrased account of the Viola Concerto, the earliest concerto of the three and some would say the greatest. Silverthorne evidently knows his William Primrose recordings, which is no bad thing in itself though (he) had plenty of his own ideas. "

The Guardian - Edward Greenfield

"For the first time from Previn and the LSO we had the ideal combination of the three Walton Concertos, all for stringed instruments. The danger was that the three might sound too similar. But having them together, with brilliant LSO principals as characterful soloists, helped sort them out, and highlight their differences. Paul Silverthorne in the Viola Concerto and Tim Hugh in the Cello Concerto... played with an assurance and warmth of tone ideal for these works. What orchestra in the world could boast soloists of this calibre?"

"His new Viola Concerto... was commissioned for Paul Silverthorne and first performed by that excellent violist with Yan Pascal Tortelier and the BBC Philharmonic in Cheltenham Town Hall(.) Here in the unrelieved elegiac tone of the work, the source of the inspiration is unambiguously evident; it scarcely needs the repeated echoes of Beethoven's "Lebewohl" motif (from Les Adieux), let alone the several allusions to other departures form Monteverdi to Wagner, to indicate what kind of sadness is at the heart of it. The consolation is in the quality of the music, in which the viola is so very well cast and which is so skillfully matched to the flexible technique and the colour resources of this particular soloist. "

Financial Times - David Murray

"For all of its 20 minutes most of us were willingly held by this soft, pungent music, dense with thoughtful feeling but transparently scored; ...Paul Silverthorne... delivered it here with his usual soulful objectivity."

The Independent - Michael White

"...the big première in the first days of the Festival was John Woolrich's Viola Concerto... a luminous beauty, indebted to the orientalism of late Tippett, and the characterising of the viola as an instrument of elegiac depression. ...the soloist Paul Silverthorne played with considerable, if ruminative, eloquence."

Gloucestershire Echo - Alfred Lawrence

"Paul Silverthorne gave a wonderfully eloquent account of the solo part... For those in tune with its gentle melancholy it was an unforgettable experience."

Robert Saxton - Viola Concerto.
Royal Albert Hall London BBC Proms August 1993
City of London Sinfonia - Hickox

The Times - Noel Goodwin

"(The concerto draws) the most reticent of orchestral instruments into the spotlight, and Paul Silverthorne, for whom it was written, proved himself a virtuoso in sensitivity and technique. "

The Guardian - Edward Greenfield

"... it was welcome that Robert Saxton's Viola Concerto was so compact in its four sharply conceived and well-balanced movements. Paul Silverthorne was the masterly soloist, finding lyricism even in some of the grittiest string writing. "